Why is it that crushed ice makes everything in life so much better? probably because there´s RUM in it….“What one rum can’t do, three rums can"(Don the Beachcomber) Take two Mai Tais or a Zombie…and "labor" as a concept will disappear from your mind…I love beautiful and rare rums in intriguing bottles…and i like big rough untamed citrus peels!

BEACHBUM BERRY´S REMIXED – A VERITABLE TREASURE CHEST

This book is hands down awesome. To me its a veritable treasure chest to dig and dig and dig from..

You get most of the stuff from Grog Log and Intoxica wrapped up in an updated form with history and little fun and interesting anecdotes, lots of new recipes and tons of full color photographs that makes you wanna call in sick immediately and head for your shaker.

It takes time to digest all this. Because its not a small book – this one is heavy – and so full of stuff that i can only admire Rick Stutz over at “Kaiserpenguin” who recently joined the “stomping through” bandwagon – started by Erik Ellestad over at “Underhill Lounge” with his heroic “Stomping though the Savoy” projekt, which inspired me to start mixing through Grog Log – and now Rick is mixing himself through this epic book – Beachbum Berry`s Remixed.

That it will take time to digest this book is a very good thing i think, that way the fun will last so much longer and as a tiki reference book – this book of course has its place near my bar if not even in it. There was a funny discussion concerning the use (or mis use) of cook and drinkbooks on twittter last week mentioning how some folks use them to the point of almost frying or shaking with them;-) for such wild use i would recommend the spiral bound form though..

The photographs in Remixed are colorful and brilliant and they make you want to drink! An ice cold tasty well made tiki drink is one of the things that can make me forget the hardships of the everyday life. Last year when i went to the Tales in New Orleans i brought Sippin`Safari with me and luckily the Bum was there so i also got it properly crowned (aka signed) and i think that maybe i`ll bring this one along this year as well…to mix up some of the drinks in our bar and if the Bum will be there, he better get his hands ready for a demerara Mai Tai and his pen ready to crown this one too.

Another fun thing that is new is the section that contains new original recipes from the cocktail world – or as Dr Bamboo states on his blog: ” drink writers, cocktail experts, bartenders, and people who play with booze and then blab about it online (a.k.a. bloggers).

There´s also an excellent Rum Glossary as well as an Ingredient Glossary to help you find or make the right ingredients for these drinks or how to sub things you cannot make or find. Who knew “Oke” or Okolehau can be better subbed with bourbon than Martinique rum? or subbed at all? So there´s a lot to find in Remixed which has all the potentials to become your “best book friend” – well worn but not fried.

You better go and get yourself a copy of this book asap if you like tiki drinks..you need it. Its hard to pick a favorite drink among all the new and old recipes that lives in this book – so i pick one of the many that intrigues me:

OPAKA RAKA

This drink i found very interesting as it uses Junipero gin, which as the name states, is heavy on the juniper flavor and as i happen to have a bottle i decided to give it a go. Usually i`m more of a fan of the less junipery gins but sometimes the right drinks needs something more potent.

Opaka Raka was invented by Brian Miller from Death&Co as a response to the Donga Punch in Sippin`Safari. If you don`t have Junipero try it with Tanqueray. This drink needs a gin with a bit of alcoholic snap, so its not recommended to use a gin with lower than 94 proof.

Shake everythiong with ice cubes and strain into a glass with fresh ice. Garnish with a lime wheel.

After the first sip it was clear to me that this is a wonderful drink! its not as junipery as i thought it would be due to the pimento dram and the vanilla. Its perfectly balanced and should be imbibed ice cold.

14 comments to BEACHBUM BERRY´S REMIXED – A VERITABLE TREASURE CHEST

You can order Okolehao from Hitimewines.com, the Maui Distillers have recently started to make it again, and let me tell you it is amazing! Bourbon is not a great substitute at all, okolehao has a much fruitier feel to it, it just tastes tropical. I highly recommend it

Yeah, some of the new drinks in the blog ‘n bar roundup section of Remxed are excellent. The Plunky Monkey (another Death & Co. submission) is great, and it calls for the Scarlet Ibis rum that I only recently tracked down. The Stephen Rembsberg’s Planter is also fast becoming a favorite, and I’ve been a Reverb Crash fan for a while.

Heads-up on some of the new renditions of the Grog Log and Intoxica drinks that call for honey. For convenience the Beachbum suggests going to 1:1 honey:water mix in all the recipes that used to call for straight honey. The problem for several of these is that he doesn’t alter the amount used in the drinks. For example, where Grog Log called for ¾ oz honey in the Hawaii Kai Treasure or the Pago Pago, the Remixed recipes ow call for ¾ oz of the 1:1 mix. This throws off the balance of those drinks since there’s actually only half the honey in the mix as there was in the original versions. I first noticed the difference when I mixed up a Never Say Die according to the new specs and with honey mix and it just wasn’t the same drink I know and love. Going through the books and comparing the recipes indicates that this is a repeat occurrence, though sometimes the amount of honey mix is bumped up slightly compared to the honey called for in the original.

This is no sort of dig at the Bum or at Remixed which is absolutely becoming my new tiki bible. It’s just something to be aware of as folks dig into the book. Heck, it may have been entirely intentional as Jeff decided to revamp the recipes, but I’m a big fan of several of those honey-heavy drinks so I’m bumping the honey back up on these.

I think that garnish is both cool and overly much at the same time;-) the drink IS overdecorated but it does fit into the whole thing as well.So one could say its overdecorated in the right place.But certainly not practical;-)that dangling tingy is really cool though.

The most beautiful garnish in the book i think is on page 131 though..

This recipe calls for Don’s Spice #2. However, on another source, Kindred Cocktails, http://www.kindredcocktails.com/cocktail/opaka-raka , it calls for Don’s Mix which is a different thing (2 parts grape fruit juice + 1 part cinnamon syrup). Can anyone confirm which recipe is the right one?

Hi xCiLE, when i googled it i saw that cocktailvirgin also listed Don’s Spice #2 but that bittermens blog lists Don`s mix…so we have 2 blogs listing one and 2 listing the other…so when i came back home from work i went and checked in my Remixed and in there it says Don`s spices #2.

THEN i luckily took time to read the comments on kindredcocktails and discovered this –

The posted recipe has been verified with the creator. The recipe in Beach Bum Berry Remixed was incorrectly calling for Donn’s Spices #2. This error has propagated to other on-line sources.

So apparently there´s actually a typo in Bum`s book Remixed – so it should actually be Don`s Mix. I`m correcting that in the recipe here now and i`ll also notify cocktailvirgin about the typo in the book.

I also read the comment in the Kindred Cocktail recipe about the verification with the creator. Hopefully we can trust this comment and settle for Don’s Mix instead of Don’s Spices #2. Another proof for that thesis might be Bittermen’s Elemakule Tiki Bitters’s webpage which also lists Don’s Mix in the recipe for Opaka Raka:http://bittermens.com/products/elemakule-tiki-bitters/